


Girls' Night Out

by Elleth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Femslash Yuletide, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilderness survival training à la Skye and Jemma. Written for the "by the fire" prompt for the first day of Femslash Yuletide on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls' Night Out

"So... wilderness survival. In December. Are you _nuts_?" Skye all but spat the words. Ward only grinned and side-stepped the half-hearted swing she took at his head. Smug bastard. "Couldn't you have told me sooner, give me some time to prepare?" 

"Because the bad guys knock hello and wait while you pack your survival kit before they dump you somewhere in the back of beyond. Right. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is prepared for things like that, or at least knows how to survive until they're found. And if they don't, chances are they won't be an Agent much longer. Or anything else." 

Skye grumbled. "December. When you pick me up I'll be a Skye-shaped popsicle."  
Ward shook his head and tapped his wrist. "We'll be keeping tabs on you; critical condition means immediate pickup. You'll be fine." 

Skye glanced down at the bracelet. "Critical condition, huh. At least this thing is good for _something_. And I guess FitzSimmons'll nurse me back to health? If I fall through the ice, or get chewed on by a Yeti."

"Actually," said Jemma, ducking around a corner clutching the straps of two enormous camo backpacks, "I'm coming with you. You see," she laughed and gave Ward an apprehensive look, "field survival experience like that, it's recommended for lab personnel, but not required. And Fitz..." she fingered the straps and stared at her feet, "... the South Ossetia mission counts as his, and you wouldn't believe how he's gloating sometimes, so..." 

"... it's a girls' night out in the wilderness." Skye shrugged, though there was a grin that wanted out, the kind of grin she'd die to avoid in front of Ward, so she cleared her throat, and it wasn't either exaggerated (check), or conspicuous (check). Ward smirked. Damnit. "Better than going all alone." 

"Yes. Also... it's either Bigfoot or Sasquatch in North America. The Yeti's from the Himalayas, all we have of it, at any rate." Jemma grinned.

"Wait – are you saying they..."

"... really exist? Yeah? I'm not a cryptozoologist, but yeah? For some there is fairly conclusive evidence; we know there are several gigantic hominoids, even some hominins, and there's some tiny ones as well, on some Indonesian islands. Others are hoaxes, of course – DeLoys sat a spider monkey on an ammunition box to make it appear larger, some Yeti sightings and traces actually were bears – a new species of bears related to ancient polar bear populations, and that's fantastic, but that's all the public gets." Jemma's eyes sparkled in that impossible way they always did when she talked science. Skye laughed. 

"Right. So somewhere down there is a Yeti that doesn't know who's coming for dinner." 

"Sasquatch. And is that... dinner guests, or dinner... dinner?" 

"You're the scientist, you're telling me." Skye gave the pack sitting at her feet a nudge. "Are we there yet?" 

* * * 

There was a loud crunching sound behind Skye, followed by a shriek and a splash. "Oh, _fiddlesticks_! This was the _worst_ idea! Let's follow that stream, Jemma, we'll be finding some road to the next town soon enough, Jemma! I'm _sopping wet_ , Skye, and it's _below zero_!"

"Not in Fahrenheit, but you still shouldn't be taking a bath. Didn't anybody tell you that it's nearly Christmas?" Skye turned around and shrugging off her own pack on the bank offered a hand to Jemma, who was sitting in the shallow water of the stream (nonetheless up to her ribs), where the ice had crashed under her flyweight, but then a flyweight and a twenty-pound backpack were apparently still too much for a spot that Skye had managed to avoid – by accident, really. Still, Jemma looked ready to murder to someone, and if Skye would have had to bet on her versus a Yeti at this moment, her money would have been on Jemma. 

"You're adora- aah!" Jemma's fingers were icy when she grabbed Skye's hands, both of them, and _yanked_. Skye plunged forward head-first and came up spluttering with hair stuck all over her face, and half on Jemma's lap. That part wasn't so bad, but the water was the kind of cold that wasn't just cold, it was the kind of cold that stung, and Skye could practically feel her teeth beginning to chatter. 

"F-f-fair p-p-play." Jemma climbed to her feet in slow-motion, raining down icy rivulets on Skye, and offered her a hand. Her lips were already going blue. 

* * *

" _Finally_ ," Skye muttered when the wood kindled. It wasn't so easy to build a fire when your fingers were frozen stiff, and the lighters had been in Jemma's backpack, as sopping wet and mostly-useless as the rest of her equipment. She sat hunched up and wrapped in three blankets while Skye had wrapped herself in her mercifully dry sleeping-bag, and their her clothes lay in two heaps that would be a literal clothes-icebergs before long. Jemma was clutching a thermos cup of some S.H.I.E.L.D.-concocted self-heating drink, brewed up for situations precisely like this one. 

"This tastes horrible," said Jemma. "It's so bad it's not even worth cussing at." With her lips still faintly blue and her face very pale, Skye could honestly say that she looked like hell warmed over – or not warmed at all. To add insult to injury, it was starting to get dark, and the stars were blinking into view above the bare trees, some twinkling through the branches like Christmas lights. Damn. Clear nights were even colder than overcast ones.

"Hey," Skye said and patted the ground beside her. "You know what they do in cheesy romance stories in situations like this?" 

"No? What?" 

"Body heat." 

"Body heat?" 

"Sharing body heat. Nude cuddling. But usually I think it's just one of the people who's close to hypothermia, but it'll probably work either way. Beats dying of exposure, doesn't it?" 

"Yeah. And we're... lacking the anatomy to make any _are you just happy to see me_ jokes."

"Oh God. True." Skye managed a lopsided grin, half-hearted and probably only half-showing if the muscles in her face were as frozen as they felt. Didn't mean she wasn't grateful. _That_ would be awkward to explain. 

"So... I've got the sleeping bag, you bring the s'mores." 

"No! They're abominations, that's pure sugar and... cracker.. and... chocolate, right? Actually, they sound... nice enough?" Jemma ducked her head, but she scooted over to Skye all the same, grinning, setting aside the cup to rub warmth back into her fingers. 

"Sleeping bag?" offered Skye, pulling down the zipper. "I won't look. It's tempting, but I won't." Skye bit her lips. Where the hell had that come from?

There was a sharp intake of breath from Jemma. "Is it?" she was nearly squeaking. "Tempting, me?" 

Silence. Nothing much that Skye could say in response, could she? 

Jemma cleared her throat. "Skye. I wasn't going to... say anything, really, but I noticed you skulking around when I was working in the lab. Or... in general... or... after _that_. That hug took... a long time." 

Oh, great. Were they really talking feelings now? "Yeah, well, you almost... you know what happened. I thought you were dead! That was _idiotic_!"

"I'd have liked to see _you_ sit around and wait for a Chitauri virus to electrocute your brain. And you can keep the sleeping bag. The blankets are good enough. I'm almost warm again; it's fine." Jemma's fingers had gone white at the knuckles going back to clutching the thermos cup. 

"Simm – _Jemma_. I was worried, that's all." 

"Non-apology." 

"I'm sorry?" 

"Token." Jemma took a sip of the beverage, and her face twisted in disgust. "It's _foul_. And you're really good at avoiding that sort of stuff, aren't you? Nothing ever sticks to you, it's like... Skye the lotus leaf, and then you go rubbing it in other faces instead." 

"Lotus leaf?" 

"Yeah, lotus leaf. It's superhydroscopic – it repells water or... or dirt, due to its surface architecture on a nanoscopic level." 

"I got this, in case you don't remember? Sometimes things stick." Skye held up her wrist where the silver armband glinted in the firelight. "Think they noticed our swimming trip and will come pick us up?" 

"... I reckon they noticed that our conditions are normalizing, or Fitz would be chewing May's ear off by now. He's the one monitoring us. - Oh. I'll have to give him an answer for something." Jemma reached for her pack and pulled it closer, then began to rummage through it until she finally pulled out a clear ziplock bag – still closed, and though the contents, wrapped in white napkins, looked a little squashed, she unwrapped one with a vaguely cheerful face. "Let's see what he put on it," she said, and took a bite. 

"Sandwiches?" asked Skye. "Fitz made you _sandwiches_? That's actually kind of cute. You two are so in love it's not even funny." 

"... we're not _in love_. We're like... siblings." 

"Right." 

"If we were in love, would I be doing this?" Jemma put the sandwich bag away and shrugged off the cocoon of blankets she had pulled closer around her. And she glared, or at least was trying to. Unlike her stint in the water earlier, she now looked about as threatening as a kitten, one with its claws clipped, and in the biting air her skin was standing up in goosebumps, all the way from her arms to her drawn-up knees to her ankles. There wasn't much at all to see, properly speaking – the curve of her shoulders and back, and a lot of very appealing leg, but it wasn't quite what Skye had had in mind. Or how and when she'd had it in mind. She had had _something_ in mind, but if this was the alternative, even involving Jemma's horrible and adorable - _horradorable_ , that seemed a good word to describe it – flirting, then she'd take what she would get.

"T-tempting enough for you?" 

"Not what I expected to happen." Still, Skye couldn't help looking. A little. And it was only natural that her mouth was going a little dry, right? "But maybe we can repeat that back on the Bus, when it's warmer? Now come here. Sleeping bag. Body heat. Before some Yeti spies on you, or Fitz goes for May's ear after all." 

"Okay... but if anything's spying, it's a _Sasquatch_."


End file.
